In this study, a comparative analysis for predicting sports attendance demand is presented based on econometric, artificial intelligence, and machine learning methodologies. Data from more than 20,000 games from three major leagues, namely the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and Major League Baseball (MLB), were used for training and testing the approaches. The relevant literature was examined to determine the most useful variables as potential regressors in forecasting. To reveal the most effective approach, three scenarios containing seven cases were constructed. In the first scenario, each league was evaluated separately. In the second scenario, the three possible combinations of league pairings were evaluated, while in the third scenario, all three leagues were evaluated together. The performance evaluations of the results suggest that one of the machine learning methods, Gradient Boosting, outperformed the other methods used. However, the Artificial Neural Network, deep Convolutional Neural Network, and Decision Trees also provided productive and competitive predictions for sports games. Based on the results, the predictions for the NBA and NFL leagues are more satisfactory than the predictions of the MLB, which may be caused by the structure of the MLB. The results of the sensitivity analysis indicate that the performance of the home team is the most influential factor for all three leagues.

在这项研究中，提出了基于计量经济学，人工智能和机器学习方法的预测体育出勤需求的比较分析。来自三个主要联赛，即美国国家篮球协会（NBA），国家橄榄球联赛（NFL）和美国职业棒球大联盟（MLB）的20,000场比赛的数据被用于训练和测试方法。审查了相关文献，以确定最有用的变量作为预测中的潜在回归指标。为了揭示最有效的方法，构建了包含七个案例的三个方案。在第一种情况下，对每个联赛分别进行评估。在第二种情况下，评估了联赛配对的三种可能组合，而在第三种情况下，对所有三个联赛进行了评估。对结果的性能评估表明，其中一种机器学习方法Gradient Boosting优于其他方法。但是，人工神经网络，深度卷积神经网络和决策树也为体育游戏提供了富有成效和竞争性的预测。根据结果​​，NBA和NFL联赛的预测比MLB的预测更令人满意，这可能是因为MLB的结构所致。敏感性分析的结果表明，主队的表现是所有三个联赛中最具影响力的因素。决策树还为体育游戏提供了富有成效和竞争性的预测。根据结果​​，NBA和NFL联赛的预测比MLB的预测更令人满意，这可能是因为MLB的结构所致。敏感性分析的结果表明，主队的表现是所有三个联赛中最具影响力的因素。决策树还为体育游戏提供了富有成效和竞争性的预测。根据结果​​，NBA和NFL联赛的预测比MLB的预测更令人满意，这可能是因为MLB的结构所致。敏感性分析的结果表明，主队的表现是所有三个联赛中最具影响力的因素。